A People-Centered Accounting Firm Website
We designed and built a modern, user-friendly website to fulfill Weinstein Spira's goals of improving their SEO rankings, laying a solid digital foundation for the future, and staying true to their authentic brand.
An Accounting Firm Website Built to Serve People
Our mission was to create a top-notch accounting firm website that connected Weinstein Spira with the right clients and the right potential future employees. Combining design, strategy, and a high level of involvement from Weinstein Spira's leadership, we crafted a good-looking, well-functioning website that fit the accounting firm's brand perfectly.
But with a hefty bank of blog posts, leadership bios, and service pages all living on an outdated CMS, giving the accounting firm an upgraded online presence wasn't easy. Still, it was worth the time and brainpower to build their new website to maximize performance, SEO, and internal and external usability.
Our Approach
User Experience (UX) Workshop
Before getting to work, it’s good to make sure those big decisions are made and agreed upon. To make sure all parties involved are on the same page, we used a brand workshop. These workshops allow us to plan the website’s purpose, understand the audience, and involve key stakeholders (firm partners) to keep key decision-makers involved.
Wireframes, Site Map, and Schedule
Following the workshop, we created key wireframes, a site map, and a schedule to outline the website's structure and timeline. This might seem like a small step but it’s the ingredients for a strong foundation for any accounting firm website project.
Requirements
Before we get to work, we have to understand the client’s goals so we can make the right changes. What kinds of things do they want and what are the tradeoffs? If we figure it out now, we're less-likely to have to figure it out when it's expensive: after the work's already started.
Here are a few of the challenges we were able to overcome by planning at the beginning.
Balancing SEO and People
It’s hard to talk to machines (search engines) and people in the same sentence. Trying too hard to rank can take a brand off-track quickly and lose your actual audience in the process.
Along with insights from the brand workshop, we integrated standard SEO practices while preserving the brand's voice and creating a more human-centric experience.
Editable CMS with Rock-Solid Performance
Content management systems (CMSs) come with built-in features that simplify editing but can impact page loading speed. Without proper optimization, this can negatively affect organic search rankings and user experience. We used a combination of premium tools to make the website run smoothly and load quickly, all while still allowing their internal staff to easily edit and manage content without compromising performance.
Website Migration without SEO Compromise
The firm's previously-mentioned outdated CMS (Concrete5 if you're wondering) didn't come with an out-of-the-box migration solution over to WordPress. So, moving over a decade's worth of content from the old site to the new was no small task. For this project we opted to do most of it manually, since we wanted to be sure to not miss anything and retain as much SEO juice as possible.
Permalink Best Practices
As you can imagine, a website built almost a decade ago might have a few structural issues that need addressing. In this case, Weinstein Spira's previous website had some debilitating permalink structures that we just had to fix. A few settings within WordPress and a handful of redirect scripts later and we could sleep easy.
Focus on the “Why”
Most businesses use their website primarily to sell their products or services. That’s why most business websites heavily focus on those things in their content. Weinstein Spira is a little different. For them, people, and more specifically, relationships are the why. They believe technology should serve people, not the other way around.
Through our UX workshop process, we discovered that some of the most important content on their website is their team member bio pages. The data showed that an overwhelming number of previous site visitors wanted to get to know their people more than know about their services. With that in mind, we built a website that heavily integrated and featured their team members prominently on almost every page of the site.
By marrying their website goals with their brand and the people that make up their firm, we were able to successfully create a vibrant website that took a 60-year-old accounting firm and solidified its web presence for years to come. Ultimately our approach resulted in a modern, user-friendly website that fulfilled Weinstein Spira's goals, improved its SEO rankings, and better displayed its accounting firm brand.
A Video that Ties it All Together
There's only so much you can communicate through written word and still images. That's why we were so excited to capture the Weinstein Spira spirit through their Brand Anthem Video.
After a trip out to Houston to shoot interviews and film b-roll of their team, we produced this video and couldn't be happier with how it turned out.